


where two raging fires meet together

by dexwebster



Category: Shakespeare Retold
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:30:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dexwebster/pseuds/dexwebster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And where two raging fires meet together<br/>They do consume the thing that feeds their fury:</p>
            </blockquote>





	where two raging fires meet together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Age or Wizardry (ageorwizardry)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ageorwizardry/gifts).



"Kate."

"You're a horrible person." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye but wouldn't actually glance over from staring out the window of the limo, wouldn't admit she was watching him.

"Ka-ate," Petruchio said again, sing-songing low. He watched the street lights and neon signs paint her face in melting stripes of color as they rode. He could see only the corner of her mouth, the neat lipstick and cat-whisker wrinkles she'd got from keeping it pinched up all the time. "I think you should be a bit nicer to me."

"Why should I do that?" she said, nonchalant. "So you'll get it into your head that it's all right for you to make a fool of yourself and humiliate an ambassador all because you wanted some champagne?"

"You're just jealous because you can't have any." Petruchio swayed towards Katherine a little for effect, brandishing the champagne bottle. Not that he'd actually had that much to drink, but it was fun to act like he had, and Kate liked to pretend she hated it.

"Jealous?" She finally, finally turned to look at him then, and her sneer was feral. He could feel the hot puffs of air as she huffed each breath, almost panting. Well, not really, because she was sitting all the way across the bench. But, oh, could he imagine.

He waved a hand. "And you can't stand the man anyway," he said. Which was absolutely true. Lord Mitchell "I bet you were glad of it. As a matter of fact, I don't think you should just be nice to me," he said, slouching down into his seat to avoid temptation –- if he got too close neither of them would be able to stop themselves. "As a matter of fact," he said again, "I think you should thank me."

"The day I thank you will be the day I--" she stopped and her mouth went slack for a fleeting moment as she shuddered out the rest of her breath, dropping the trumped-up fury for just a glimpse of all the wonderful things they wouldn't say while they were pretending to be horrible to each other. Pretending they weren't going to give in to the tension bearing down on them like a storm on the shore, a wildfire, a force of fucking nature.

Her mouth drew in tighter, an edge of a growl peeking through now. Petruchio just settled down into his seat and grinned wider. He loved that growl. Loved everything about her, really. He loved the way she smelled, the new swell of her belly. He loved everything he was going to do to her, and the way she was playing with the hem of her shawl, going crazy because he wasn't touching her. (He steadfastly did not think about the way he nearly was as well, and changed the mental subject. The car for one, the lush leather upholstery under his fingertips, soft and buttery, with that dark delicious scent, the one that went perfectly with fine scotch and bitter chocolate, and her teeth sinking into his lip and—so much for changing the subject).

He was saved by circumstance as the limousine lurched to a stop; he hadn't even noticed they'd made it home. He made a production of shooing the driver away and back to his seat when he got out, and opened the door for Kate himself, bowing low. Kate didn't pause, just said goodnight to the driver. Her heels cracked gunshots in small, tight steps on the flagstones, three for every one of his as he ambled along behind her.

She had her keys out of her little clutch when she got to the door. She opened it without looking back. "If you want to make it up to me, you'll have to do better than that."

Her voice was low, calm. The yelling and the growling were a force to be reckoned with on their own, but this—this was the voice that had brought MPs to tears and sent better men than Petruchio to their knees. And to think it took a ne'er-do-well aristocrat to even come close to bringing Katherine Minola to hers. Good job then that he'd never considered himself a very good man.

"Kate, darling," he said, as he followed her through the door and closed it behind him. "if you keep sweet-talking me like that I may be not able to contain myself."

He was not as drunk as he'd been pretending, but there was still enough champagne fizzing and bubbling around in his brain that right then it was hilarious. His laughter was giddy and helpless, loud enough to echo in the empty night.

"What's so funny?" she asked, as she turned, finally, to face him.

That mouth belonged to the biggest bitch in Britain, and it was his. He couldn't say that, of course, and so the question caught him completely off-guard. He felt a fool that he could think of nothing to say, and could only imagine he must've looked worse judging by the look on her face.

"What?"

He sighed gustily, a well-disguised breath of relief. "I," he said, chuckling a little, "am not a very good man."

Katherine folded in on herself a bit, not like something shy and hiding, but a snake coiling for attack. "You're—" and she lunged forward before she caught herself and drew back with a tangible force of will that Petruchio could only dream of possessing. Impulse control had never been his strong suit. Katherine lifted her chin. "You're not a man at all," she said, still quiet but savage, almost inhuman. Her lip was curled, teeth bare, and it made him lightheaded in a way no drink ever could, in that way he'd been searching for all his life and could never have imagined where to look. Two steps across the foyer and he wound his arm around her waist and scooped her up, his dainty Kate, small enough that he could hold her there pressed against him.

"You," she said, snarling against his mouth, hot panting breaths even better than he'd imagined, "are an overgrown infant and I've met Alsatians who are smarter."

"Oh, I don't doubt that," he said blithely, "they're quite smart for dogs. Saw a thing on the telly once about one knowing maths and all sorts of things." It would've been smart to put the champagne in the fridge, but by the time he had the thought it was too late. He'd have to stop, let her mouth go unkissed for precious seconds he couldn't bear to waste now. Anyway, she was even with one hand occupied. "And what did I tell you about being nice to me?" he warned, but it was an empty threat. He'd told her before he'd shove her own knickers into her filthy mouth, but he never would and they both knew it. What would his Kate be without her voice?

Katherine's mobile ringing was a shrill and unexpected alarm the next morning, but even that would have fallen before his will to sleep if it weren't for the way her groggy, "hello?" went to a sharp "What?" as she started shifting, dragging the sheet with her as she sat up. "Yes, it's true," she snaps. "They what?"

"Who what?" Petruchio said, propping himself on his elbows, skin prickling with the chill outside the blankets. For all the improvements they've made to Hazlington so far, it was still a drafty old manor.

"I know it shouldn't bloody well matter, that doesn't mean it won't. Yes, fine. I'll call you later." She looked down at her phone. "John Naps has got word that one of the tabloids has photos of me leaving the maternity clinic. They go to press tomorrow morning. He wants to know if he should offer them compensation, which is absurd." She wasn't crying, because it was Katherine, but she looked as if she should be. "I hadn't wanted it out this soon."

Petruchio scoffed. "You spend all day yelling at the most powerful men in the country, and some piece of trash tabloid that isn't good enough to wipe my ass thinks they're going to strong arm us? It will be all right." Petruchio is used to being angry. As a boy he was angry his mother left, as a teenager because his father had abandoned him just the same only he ran to a bottle instead of the continent, and after that it was an easy habit to keep. Anger with a purpose was a new one, a gut-level sense of protectiveness he still hadn't gotten used to."If I have to go round and kick the lot of them in the face." He pulled her back down to the bed and tucked her head against his shoulder. If she did want to cry, at least now she could pretend he didn't know.

——————

 _Congratulations are in order to Tory frontbencher Katherine Minola—and her mister, making a rare public appearance—who made an announcement this morning that they are expecting. . . their first **three** children. That's right, Miss Minola, whose whirlwind wedding to the Earl of Charlbury was a source of much speculation regarding her run for party leadership, is expecting triplets. The MP saying something shocking no longer surprises anyone, so perhaps we should applaud her for accomplishing it without a volley of her usual post-watershed language as much as for the happy news._

 _— Daily Telegraph_

——————

The books were an addiction. He bought piles of them, more than he ought, and read them in secret while Katherine was at work. Pregnancy books, parenting books, books about dealing with twins and triplets, like crack cocaine in happy baby face form. He'd read them all and gave the best ones to Katherine every so often (the terrible ones he hid behind a row of antique vases on a shelf she couldn't reach until he could figure out what to do with them).

They are all terrible right now, he thinks. None of them said it would be like this. Having triplets had risked Kate out of a midwife, so it is a doctor that hands him the baby, his baby, and Petruchio's heart goes _clang_ and locks on tight. "Hello, baby. Phillip. Pip." He is too caught up in the baby's little red fist and mottled, old-man face to remember there are more of them coming, two more tiny, perfect people he's about to meet, until he's drawn away by Katherine, sweaty and pale, snarling at the doctor when he tries to tell her when to push. She's already shouted him down when he suggested a just-in-case caesarean and informed him that he would _not_ be cutting her open unless it became a medical necessity, so Petruchio has to give the man credit for trying.

And then Katherine doesn't stop bleeding.

He feels, later, like he's just come back into consciousness after some hours away. It's the sort of feeling he associates with getting falling down drunk, or a hard knock on the head after a fight. Only he spent this one yelling at hospital staff, at Kate's mother when she tried to sneak in for "just a minute" while Kate was still half out of her head with pain meds, and wound up with babies instead of liquor bottles and black eyes. He has indistinct memories of mood swinging wildly between the righteous fury of a husband, a father, and wishing desperately for a drink at the thought of _oh god a father_.

It was baseless panic, he thinks as he looks at the three little bassinets all in a row. At Kate sleeping fitfully. He wasn't once tempted to go for the hospital's isopropyl, so he knows at some gut level that he'll be fine.


End file.
